Career

Karting

Van der Garde has a successful karting career, winning the Dutch championship in 1998. In Super A he was best rookie in 2001 and world champion in 2002.

Formula Renault

The following year he joined the Formula Renault 2000 Championship and finished sixth, driving for Dutch team Van Amersfoort Racing. On the strength of his performance he became part of the Renault F1 Driver Development programme.

For 2006 he joined the ASM team, which had dominated the season in 2005 with Lewis Hamilton and Adrian Sutil. The team claimed the top two places in the championship once more in 2006 - but it was van der Garde's team mates Paul di Resta and Sebastian Vettel who topped the leader board. The Dutchman ended the year sixth with a single victory. During the year he was easily in the top four fastest drivers, but bad luck and mechanical problems, like not even starting the Bugatti Circuit race from pole because he broke down on the warm-up lap for...Read More